


i now pronounce you pierce and hunnicutt

by Granspn



Category: MASH (TV)
Genre: M/M, and you’re both army doctors in the Korean War, apparently I just compulsively write things all the time now, episode tag: s08e09 Mr. and Mrs. Who, i genuinely tried to retain some semblance of realism, like to what they might get up to at a party, relative to what i don't know, so it's self-indulgent (obviously) but relatively plausible?, you construct intricate rituals to hold a fake wedding ceremony for you and your best friend
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-21
Updated: 2020-09-21
Packaged: 2021-03-07 22:28:57
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,030
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26575288
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Granspn/pseuds/Granspn
Summary: after Charles and donna’s un-marriage, bj and hawkeye decide to get “married” at the party, because it’s okay if everyone’s drunk and it’s just a joke!!! right?? right??? No one will even remember tomorrow morning haha.. unless..?““You know, you and Pierce are practically married; why not make it official?”BJ raised his eyebrows. “Me and Hawkeye?” Him and Hawkeye? They were pretty much attached at the hip, BJ supposed, but married? In a hazy memory he could hear Hawkeye describing Carlye, saying if he didn’t see her every hour he got the bends.“Sure!” Margaret said. “It’s a little… untraditional, but so is an un-wedding.”“Good point,” BJ said. “Now all I need is a ring.””
Relationships: B. J. Hunnicutt/Benjamin Franklin "Hawkeye" Pierce
Comments: 18
Kudos: 110





	i now pronounce you pierce and hunnicutt

**Author's Note:**

> alksjdklsj I do Not know what this is I just couldn’t stop thinking about the fact that I think they totally could have gotten away with staging a joke wedding but that it would drive hawkeye crazy and bj too except bj is so repressed that he wouldn’t really know why it was driving him crazy till later… so I tried to convey this

“By the power invested in me by the state of intoxication,” BJ all but slurred as Hawkeye cackled with laughter behind him, “I now pronounce you man, and woman. You may now ignore the bride!”

The crowd cheered and the party roared on. Hawkeye gave BJ a pat on the shoulder and indicated he was going to go get another drink. BJ made his way over to Margaret, who having been laughing maniacally not moments ago now looked positively forlorn.

“What’s eating you, Margaret? Too much salt in your coffee-peter? No, wait, too much coffee in your saltpeter? No, too much–”

“Hunnicutt…” Margaret started, probably searching for a way to rib him about botching his joke, and giving up. “I’m not drinking coffee.”

“That much is clear,” BJ said. He sat down next to her and nudged her with his elbow. “C’mon. What’s up?”

“That was such a beautiful ceremony, BJ! It’s a shame we had to waste it on an un-wedding,” Margaret lamented. BJ laughed.

“No reason it has to go to waste. We just have to find someone who wants to get married.”

Margaret’s face lit up. “Okay, who did you have in mind?”

“Not sure,” BJ said, drumming his fingers on his thigh and peering around the room. “Klinger and Kellye are looking awful cute these days. Or there’s always Colonel Potter and Sophie.”

“Ha! Try again,” Margaret said. BJ’s brow furrowed as he wracked his brain.

“Do you have your eye on anybody?” he asked. She pursed her lips like she was thinking.

“Not at the moment, no.” She tapped BJ on the chest. “You know, you and Pierce are practically married; why not make it official?”

BJ raised his eyebrows. “Me and Hawkeye?” _Me and Hawkeye?_ They were pretty much attached at the hip, BJ supposed, but married? In a hazy memory he could hear Hawkeye describing Carlye, saying if he didn’t see her every hour he got the bends.

“Sure!” Margaret said. “It’s a little… untraditional, but so is an un-wedding.”

“Good point,” BJ said. “Now all I need is a ring.” _All I need is a ring?_ He’d agonized far more about popping the question to Peg. Not that he was really “popping the question” to Hawkeye, whatever that would even mean.

“Here,” Margaret said, and nibbled two bites out of a pretzel, leaving one segment left, perfect for Hawkeye’s perpetually bare ring finger.

“Hey, swell,” BJ said, and made to stand up, but stopped himself. “Wait, Margaret. Do you want to be my best man?”

She placed a hand over her heart. “It would be an honor.” She looked genuinely touched. The whole world was turning upside down. “Now go!” she told him.

“I’m going, I’m going!” Why, or toward what, he wasn’t quite sure. He nearly tripped over his own feet half a dozen times walking across the mess tent, using Hawkeye’s stupid cowboy hat like a homing beacon.

“Benjamin Franklin Pierce Hawkeye?” BJ announced to the room, startling Hawkeye and getting his attention. When Hawkeye turned around, he couldn’t see BJ, because he was down on one knee holding a pretzel out to him with two of the sections bitten off.

“Will you marry me?” BJ said.

“What?” Hawkeye said, because he couldn’t say anything else. The party was still murmuring along somewhere in the distance, but the crowd just around them was silent. Hawkeye couldn’t look at them, and he couldn’t look at BJ, so he just looked at the pretzel. The ring.

“Will you marry me?” BJ said, slower this time, annunciating each word like the problem was that Hawkeye didn’t hear him.

“I, uh, well, Beej, I don’t know what to say. Uhhhh…” Hawkeye felt like he was short-circuiting, until he managed, “What will Peg think?”

“Shhhh,” BJ said, pushing himself to his feet and placing a finger over Hawkeye’s lips. “She doesn’t have to know.”

“Uh-huh,” Hawkeye said, brushing BJ’s hand away.

“Well, Pierce, what’ll it be?” Margaret urged.

“Oh, uh, well, in that case, yes, I guess.”

“He said yes!” BJ cheered, and for a moment Hawkeye was swept up in the excitement of it all, too. BJ placed the “ring” on his finger, and he made a big show of admiring it. Hawkeye eyed the salt crystals and smiled.

“Sodium chloride, so beautiful. And every third stone a diamond chip!”

“You cut that out!” Margaret said, but pulled him into a hug anyway like he’d actually just gotten engaged.

He knew this was all just a big joke. It was funny, too. People certainly acted like he and BJ were a married couple, expecting each to always know the other’s whereabouts and how they were doing, and what should be done to cheer them up. But everything they did verged just on the edge between joking and truth-telling, between dream and reality, and Hawkeye couldn’t be sure which side of the wire they were walking on right now.

“This is some gag,” Hawkeye said, pulling BJ toward him by his bicep. “If somebody official walks in now we could be in serious trouble.”

“What?” BJ asked, his smile still as wide as Hawkeye had ever seen it. “No we wouldn’t! It’s too ridiculous for anyone to think anything of it.”

“Right,” Hawkeye said. Hawkeye was always good for a goof; that’s how BJ knew he’d go along with this. And BJ promised himself he wasn’t even going to imagine it was real. Well, maybe he would for a split second, just to see what it would be like. In the back of his mind he realized this would probably be Hawkeye’s only ever wedding, and he was turning it into a big joke. Well, too late now. Besides, when faced with a choice between backing down or doubling down, they always committed. 

“What could boost morale more than a wedding?” BJ said. “Remember how much fun we had at Margaret’s?”

“I guess so,” Hawkeye conceded. He was just going to have to make the best of it while it lasted and make everyone laugh. Maybe he should get that tattooed on his forehead and save everybody the trouble of getting to know him.

If BJ were a woman, Hawkeye was sure he would have married him by now. Of course, the closest he’d ever come to that reality was Carlye Walton, née Breslin, and he hadn’t been able to make himself lock that one down either. Also of course, BJ was already married to a woman he couldn’t shut up about and with a daughter he couldn’t shut up about twice as much. Hawkeye would have been perfectly content to tough it out, gleaning domestic bliss and casual intimacy when he could, preferably with BJ, but taking it where he could get it. He didn’t know why it was making him so antsy to put on a fake marriage ceremony with his best friend. It should have been a barrel of laughs. In fact, it was going to be. He was going to make sure of it.

“Think we can get Father Mulcahy to officiate?” BJ said.

“Sure,” Hawkeye said, “he loves me. I bet he’s always secretly wanted to marry me.” God bless homonyms, especially when priests are involved.

“Great, I’ll go talk to him.”

“Sure. I’m gonna ask Margaret to be my best man,” Hawkeye said, before the two of them started speeding off in opposite directions.

“You can’t,” BJ stopped him, “she’s already my best man.”

“Fine, then I’ll ask her to be my maid of honor.”

“Fair enough.”

“Back here in five?”

“I’ll be there with bells on.”

BJ made for where Father Mulcahy was chatting with the Colonel. His pulse was rapid and his palms were sweating, and he felt about twice as jittery as he had on his prom night. He said a short prayer to no one in particular that Peg would find this a very funny anecdote indeed.

“Ah, BJ!” Father Mulcahy greeted him. “I do hope you’ve come to tap me in my capacities as a minister.”

“Of course, Father,” BJ said. “We wouldn’t trust this to anybody else. You’re Hawkeye’s number one absolute favorite priest.”

The Father looked down and smiled. “Well, as kind as that is, I imagine it’s quite a short list.”

“Can you blame him?”

“Well–”

“So, what do you say, Father? Spare a few minutes for the dearly beloved?”

“I’d be glad to! You fellows do a lot of good for this camp. I’m sure it will do wonders to see such a… concrete showing of your brotherly love and comradeship.” Mulcahy clapped him on the back and started moving back toward the center of the tent. Brotherly love and comradeship. Right. As long as that was what it looked like they were doing. BJ wasn’t sure why he thought anyone would think anything else.

Hawkeye pulled him aside just before the Father could gather everyone.

“Hey, Beej. What are we doing here?” he asked as seriously as he could.

“It’s just a little fun, Hawk. I know you don’t want to get married,” BJ said, seeming cheerful. When Hawkeye’s expression didn’t change, BJ’s fell suddenly, mirroring his. Hawkeye sighed. He wanted to make BJ promise they’d talk about this later. On the other hand, he never wanted to have a serious conversation ever again as long as he lived.

“No, no,” Hawkeye finally said, having decided to lean in to the bit instead of dealing with whatever he may or may not have actually been feeling. “Of course I want to get married.” He forced himself to grin and after a few moments found he wasn’t forcing himself anymore. BJ beamed back.

“I just hope you don’t leave me at the altar,” BJ said as Hawkeye led them to where Father Mulcahy was preparing to hold the “ceremony.”

“Hey, could you get me a glass to step on?” Hawkeye asked to the space beside him where BJ had been. “Oh, well.”

“Here,” BJ said, having gone to another table to grab a pencil to give Father Mulcahy. He waved it in the air for a moment to demonstrate. “To help you _conduct_ the service.” Hawkeye shoved him, but not enough to upset his balance or anything. Just enough to show how much he despised those stupid jokes.

“I hate you,” he said, though he was still grinning.

“You love me.”

Before Hawkeye had time to process that, Father Mulcahy got everyone’s attention and started his spiel. He was winging it, of course, but he’d always been good on the fly. Besides, weddings are standard. Not like trying to bless a horse’s enema or a school bell filled with black market drugs. Margaret scrambled to the front and stood by BJ’s side.

“Sorry,” she whispered, “I was writing my speech.”

“Speech?” Hawkeye whispered back, incredulous. He was about to have his best man speech delivered by a U.S. Army major.

This was not how he imagined his wedding. He never imagined a wedding to BJ. He tried to tell himself that he never imagined being married to him either, but that wasn’t quite true. He simply imagined a quiet life together for them, sharing the newspaper over cups of coffee in the morning and going fishing in the afternoon. He tried not to dwell on it right then. Best not to mix fact and fiction so late at night, or early in the morning. 

“Boys, please,” the Father implored, “we’re just about to get to the good part.”

“Go ahead, Father, I’m sorry,” Hawkeye said.

“Thank you.” Mulcahy straightened his shirt and cleared his throat. He was just as plastered as the rest of them. Father Mulcahy sure made one hell of a catholic. “So. Do you, Benjamin Franklin Pierce, take BJ to be your… practically wedded husband?”

“Absotively.”

“A simple ‘I do’ will suffice,” BJ mumbled.

“Right,” Father Mulcahy went on. “And do you, B– BJ, what _does_ BJ stand for?”

“Anything you want.”

The Father rolled his eyes fondly. “Do you, BJ Hunnicutt, take Hawkeye to be your practically wedded husband?”

“I do. As long as we both shall live.”

“So just another couple of weeks or so,” Hawkeye said.

“Fantastic! I now pronounce you… uh… Pierce and Hunnicutt.” He sounded satisfied.“You may now, uh…” Father Mulcahy trailed off.

“Kiss him, Hawk!” Kellye called from the crowd. Hawkeye raised his eyebrows at BJ as the gallery erupted with more shouts of encouragement.

“Shall we, uh, give the people what they want?” Hawkeye suggested, suggestively.

“I don’t see why not,” BJ said, grinning mischievously and sounding painfully casual.

“Okay,” Hawkeye said.

“Okay,” BJ said.

“On three?”

“Okay.”

“One, two–” but BJ kissed him before he got to three, surprising him with slightly parted lips. Wolf whistles emanated from the crowd, and Hawkeye felt BJ giggle into his mouth. The situation was asymptotically approaching what Hawkeye would charitably call too much for him to handle. He wanted to regain some semblance of control over what was happening and thought about dipping BJ, but worried he would drop him. Instead, when they pulled apart, and saw everyone still laughing and cheering, BJ grabbed his hand and led him in a gracious bow, like this was their standing ovation for a knock-out stage performance. _There are more things in heaven and Earth, Horatio,_ Hawkeye idly thought. As BJ led them through the parted crowd he felt like he was watching them from outside his body.

BJ hadn’t planned to kiss Hawkeye. He hadn’t even thought about the premise of the wedding far enough to realize there would be precedent for him to kiss him. And he certainly hadn’t planned to kiss him before “three.” Something had just come over him, call it getting caught up in the moment, and he couldn’t stand to let that look in Hawkeye’s eyes, of vulnerability so deep and intense it looked viscerally painful, go uncomforted. Hawkeye looked like that all the time, of course, whenever he worked on an underage kid in O.R. or heard news that civilians had been shelled, but there was never anything BJ could do for him in an environment so antiseptic. But there they had been, in a moment almost suspiciously perfectly constructed for him to be able to provide Hawkeye comfort without consequences.

Maybe the only way he’d ever be able to kiss him was as a joke, but at least he’d been able to. He hadn’t even known what he’d felt was wanting to kiss him. He was glad he got to try it out. And he hoped to God they could reach a silent agreement not to ever mention it again, since he thought it might rend him perfectly in two if he started thinking about Peg and Hawkeye in the same breath (any more than he already did).

He and Hawkeye walked through the aisle that their “guests” had created while they showered them with streamers, confetti, and good cheer, until they perched atop one of the long tables to receive their well-wishers like a king and queen at court.

“Many congratulations on your nuptials, gentlemen,” Charles said. “I hope you enjoy them a damn sight more than I did mine.”

“Why, thank you, Charles,” Hawkeye said. “You should go into the greetings cards business.”

“At least that would get him out of our hair for a while,” BJ said.

“He only hangs around there ‘cause he hasn’t got any of his own.”

“Gentle _men_ ,” Charles said, with a cursory wave. 

“I’d like to propose a toast!” Klinger announced.

“Hear, hear!” Hawkeye said.

“Shhhh!” BJ clamped his hand over Hawkeye’s mouth. Hawkeye bit at his fingers, and BJ rubbed his spit across Hawkeye’s cheek while Klinger stepped up onto the bench next to them. He held his glass aloft.

“To two of the swellest guys I ever met! I only wish your son Radar could be here with you on this happiest of occasions.” A chorus of laughter rang out around the room.

“Oh, move over, Klinger,” Margaret said, all but pushing him aside and taking his place. She cleared her throat. “Ladies… and germs. When trusty Trapper John went home–”

“God rest his soul!” Klinger called out.

“Right.” Margaret went on, “When trusty Trapper John, God rest his soul, went home, we at the 4077th didn’t know how ol’ Buckeye–”

“Hawkeye,” Hawkeye corrected.

“How ol’ Sockeye–”

“ _Hawk_ eye.”

“How ol’ Hawk-nose–”

“Hawk _eye_.”

“How Pierce was gonna handle it.” Margaret swayed on her feet for a moment but regained her balance. “But when BJ Hunnicutt rolled up, we knew everything was going to be okay. You know, even though BJ was drunk as a skunk when I first met him, and who isn’t, I knew he was a good egg.” Margaret smiled fondly at BJ. Hawkeye patted his hand like they really were a happy couple being toasted by their best man.

“I’m very proud to know these two men, these fine doctors, these complete buffoons. They are the two sorriest excuses for officers I’ve ever met… and I wouldn’t have it any other way!”

“Hear, hear!” Potter called, and hiccuped when everyone looked toward him. “To, uh, to Hierce and Punnicutt!”

“To Hierce and Punnicutt!” the room echoed. 

“Hierce,” Hawkeye said quietly, holding out his glass toward BJ.

“And Punnicutt,” BJ said, as they toasted and clinked cups so only they could hear.

“And where will the happy couple be spending their honeymoon?” Klinger prompted.

“Well you’re not coming home with me, solider,” Hawkeye said. “I refuse to billet you on account of my third amendment rights.”

“Figures, Benjamin Franklin.”

“Why don’t you take the VIP tent?” Margaret said, waggling her eyebrows and bumping Hawkeye with her elbow.

“Why is everyone acting like we’re actually going to sleep together?” he asked her under his breath.

“Because it’s fun! We’re just playing. Jesus, Hawk, learn to take a joke,” Margaret said.

“ _Hawk?_ ” he mouthed to himself. Learn to take a joke? He supposed it served him right for joking about everything under the sun. He tried to play his hand close to the chest about BJ, and would never dare expect anything to come of it, but sometimes the truth just eked its way out. He couldn’t blame everyone else for joking about things he’d never said were off the table.

Which is how they actually ended up in the VIP tent, having taken a short joyride around camp in a jeep with gas cans taped to the back bumper and being ceremonially escorted inside by Margaret and Nurse Kellye. Hawkeye placed his hat on what was passing for a bedside table and peeled off a makeshift lei, then sighed and took a seat on the bed. Did everyone actually expect them to sleep in there?

“Well, here we are,” Hawkeye said.

“That was some party back there,” BJ said, unfolding a chair and sitting opposite Hawkeye.

“You’re unbelievable.”

BJ smiled cheekily. “Don’t you just love the way I sweep you off your feet?”

But Hawkeye was serious. “Beej, You kissed me back there. I thought it was gonna be a joke but then you actually kissed me. Like, a real kiss. You kissed me.”

“Stop saying ‘kiss!’” BJ stood up from the chair with such force that it folded back up and fell with a loud _clack_. “I know what I did. I didn’t think we’d have to talk about it. You never want to talk about anything important.”

“I just figured this isn’t gonna be something we can just ignore. This is gonna be a joke, you know, around camp? I figure we want to be on the same page about it when someone brings it up at breakfast tomorrow, is that so crazy?”

“No, I mean, I guess not. I guess I wasn’t thinking so far in advance. It wasn’t exactly premeditated.”

“Oh, well, thank God for that.”

“What is your problem all of a sudden? We do stuff like that all the time, enough that Margaret said we act married!”

“My problem? My problem is your problem!” Hawkeye stood, and almost stood up straight. They were practically at eye-level. “You’re the most dedicated family man in the Asian theater, BJ. I knew you wouldn’t be able to kiss someone and just let it go. Besides, I made you swear you weren’t gonna do that again, remember?”

“No, you made me swear I wouldn’t do it with Carrie again. And I didn’t just kiss _someone_. I kissed you.”

“What difference does that make?”

“I don’t know!” BJ threw his hands in the air. He was having trouble looking Hawk in the eye. 

“You have a perfect life at home, Beej. Don’t let me fuck it up.”

“You could never fuck up my life, Hawk. You’re the best thing that ever happened to me.” Hawkeye swore his vision was swimming.

“BJ, that’s all relative. I’m the best thing that ever happened to you _here_.” BJ had it all wrong. Nothing good ever happened here. Nothing except BJ, but that was Hawkeye’s problem.

“Fine, you’re the best thing that ever happened to me here.” Fine.

“Pretty low bar.”

“I’m trying to tell you how important you are to me.”

“Does that sound like the kind of thing I would let you get away with?”

BJ sighed, and sat down on the bed. “It was pretty fun, though. Getting married.”

Hawkeye laughed under his breath, all his manic energy deflating. He joined BJ on the bed, and patted him on the thigh.

“I wonder what Freud would say about my marrying a doctor,” Hawkeye said.

“I wonder what Sidney would say about all our antic lunacy tonight.”

“Sidney wouldn’t say anything. He loves us.”

“True. Besides, he knows we’re not crazy.”

“Right, we’re not crazy. Right up until we are.”

BJ turned to face him, his brow furrowed. “You’re not crazy.”

God, their faces were so close. BJ watched Hawkeye’s Adam’s apple as he swallowed.

“Beej–”

“I’m sorry I kissed you, Hawkeye.”

You could’ve carved the silence in there with a scalpel.

“You don’t have to be sorry,” Hawkeye said. “I wanted you to.” BJ thought he wasn’t crazy, but he must’ve been to say that out loud. Still, he could hold on to his sanity in the form of the past tense; ‘I _wanted_ you to’, not ‘I _want_ you to.’

“Oh,” BJ said. “Well, in that case.”

Hawkeye swallowed again. Despite the contents of his blood still being mostly alcohol, his throat had never felt so dry.

“Want to try it again?” Hawkeye said. BJ looked calm, calmer than Hawkeye thought should’ve been possible. Then again, BJ always looked calm. Calm, and quietly amused at the baffling way things were unfolding around him. Hawkeye wanted to bottle that quality to save for a rainy day. He’d have to settle for seeing BJ have it all the time.

“Yeah, sure. Just once, though,” BJ said. Hawkeye blinked. He didn’t know what he’d expected.

“Okay,” he said. “On three?”

“Okay.”

“One, two, three.” And BJ kissed him again, on three this time. But it was too short, and BJ pulled away just as Hawkeye was beginning to relax.

“Doesn’t do it for you?” Hawkeye asked. It was inevitable, he supposed. Still, all things considered this was going a lot better than he might have hoped at the outset. BJ really must love him, even if he couldn’t love him every which way. What he did not expect what was BJ actually said.

“Of course it does it for me! How could it not do it for me? We’re married, aren’t we? Why shouldn’t I like kissing you?”

Hawkeye felt like he’d been hit over the head with a rubber mallet. “BJ, we’re not married.”

“But we are, though. Father Mulcahy married us.”

“Beej–”

“I know, I know. But I can’t– I mean–”

“It’s okay. I didn’t think you would be able to. It’s nice to know I’m not crazy though. That maybe in another life we would’ve… I don’t know.”

“No,” BJ said, standing up again.

“What?”

“No. Fuck that. Fuck another life. Come here.” All he could think about was kissing Hawkeye again. This incredible person who could make his life over here worth living. He didn’t know what the kiss would mean besides that he needed some way to show Hawkeye that he was the best person he’d ever met and that the only reason he was crazy was that he didn’t think he was special.

Hawkeye rose and came over to him. BJ combed through his hair with his fingers so it sat how Hawkeye liked it. There was so much more gray in it now, but in the dark of the tent it still looked black. He took Hawkeye’s face gently in both of his hands. He didn’t know how someone who everyone else thought was so cynical, so sarcastic, so fundamentally skeptical and distrusting could look so open and vulnerable to him, but he did. He always did.

“On three?” Hawkeye said. _I love you_ , BJ realized. _My God, I really love you_.

“Okay,” BJ said.

“One…” _I love you._ “Two…” _I love you, I love you_. “Three.” _I love you, I love you, I love you_.

BJ pulled him close and tried to kiss him in a way that said nothing but _I love you_ over and over again until Hawkeye would have no choice but to get the message. BJ knew they both knew this couldn’t last forever. It probably couldn’t even last beyond this night. BJ lived too deeply within the labyrinth of normal life for this red thread to lead him out. But everything they were doing was perfectly normal. They’d gotten married, hadn’t they? Who was to tell them they shouldn’t consummate it? So they used the honeymoon suite, sorry, VIP tent, for what it was supposed to be used for. So what?

For a long time, Hawkeye had known he could fall in love with almost anyone, provided they were perfect. Luckily, he’d met a few perfect people in his life. Tommy. Carlye. Trapper. Kyung-Soon. And BJ. Sweet, helpful, charming, hilarious, mischievous, perfect BJ. Still, when he pictured his wedding, it was always to a woman. Until last night, he hadn’t thought he lived in a world where anything else was possible. It was almost perfect that his wedding had all been a joke, to everyone except him and BJ anyway. There was hardly anything in the world Hawkeye loved more than a good joke. Besides, he hardly ever pictured his wedding anymore. Maybe perfect BJ had something to do with that, too.

“It’s too bad,” Hawkeye said, fidgeting with BJ’s dog tags.

“What?”

“I bet you’d write an amazing best man speech.”

BJ propped himself up. “I’ll be your best man.”

Hawkeye shook his head. “Impossible.”

“What? Why?”

“‘Cause you’re gonna be the groom,” Hawkeye said like it was obvious or something. He leaned over and kissed BJ again, softly, without the urgency of before, when BJ had been desperate for a way to show Hawkeye how much he cared for him when words (and schemes and pranks and gentle touches and long, long looks over bleeding bodies in the O.R.) just weren’t enough. He kissed him softly enough and tasted just enough like un-wedding cake that BJ was unmade for a moment, and he wasn’t a married man doing something stupid to throw his life away; he was just a person in love, in bed with the person he was in love with. In the morning, he might be made again, but for now, he was undone.

In the night, BJ lied back and stared at the ceiling, and counted Hawkeye’s breaths against his chest. It was awfully rare that he was the one who was awake while Hawkeye slept. It was nice to imagine, even for a moment, that there was a future like this for them, back home. BJ allowed himself to imagine that Peg wouldn’t mind, and that Erin would love Hawkeye, and they would all live happily ever after somehow on each coast simultaneously. There were a million reasons it was impossible, but there were a million reasons Hawkeye was impossible, too, but here he was, cocooned in his arms feeling impossibly real. 

BJ thought that maybe they were the same, in that neither of them was what everybody thought they were. People thought Hawkeye was a firecracker, a maverick, an all kinds of crazy son of a bitch. Really, Hawkeye just hated suffering, and liked to make people laugh. BJ loved that Hawkeye was simple where he was complicated, all tied up in knots, entrenched in worlds Hawkeye knew better than to get involved in. People thought BJ was always on the straight and narrow, when really he was devious. Always one step ahead, always looking for the escape route, saying whatever has to be said to resolve things and move on. It’s why he always beat Hawkeye at chess. Hawkeye believed too strongly in the truth; BJ knew that sometimes lies are important to keep everything afloat. Everybody knew that the world was sinking, but if people knew how fast they were drowning, then there would really be trouble.

Hawkeye knew that he fell asleep before BJ. He hadn’t heard a change in his breathing before he’d been about to drift off, but BJ was asleep when Hawkeye woke up. He decided to let himself enjoy the moment of peace, since he knew the second they left that tent, this night would be off-limits. He wasn’t even sure how often he would let himself remember it, since if it wasn’t going to be real to BJ, too, what was the point? Who was to say how much of last night was real and how much they imagined? Hawkeye knew once they rejoined the world everyone would still act like Pierce And Hunnicutt was one word, and the two of them would remain attached at the hip. Nobody but them would ever know what had happened in the honeymoon suite. To the rest of the camp, they would be just as married as before.

**Author's Note:**

> the title because what could be more synonymous with “married” than “pierce and hunnicutt” 
> 
> Additionally, the standing up from a folding chair only to have it collapse is my favorite gag from 1x10 “i hate a mystery” I literally lose it every time I watch that and I can’t explain why. It’s the slapstick of it all
> 
> You know.. a story is true, a story is untrue, they are both so repressed they would tell themselves anything to get through the day so… here we are. Like this could literally have happened and then the next day they would act like everything is just kosher and perhaps that’s what kills me the most. anyway!


End file.
